Content:
This manuscript includes ideas for two poems, one of which is titled "Poem for the good old cause." It is possible that this is a very early draft of the poem "To Thee Old Cause," which first appeared in the 1871 edition of
Leaves of Grass
. However, Whitman used the term "good old cause" as early as the 1855 edition, where it appears in the Preface. In the 1860–1861 edition the phrase also appears in the poem "To a Cantatrice" (eventually titled "To a Certain Cantatrice." It originated in England during the seventeenth century, shortly after the English Civil War, and was frequently used by Whitman (see Clarence Gohdes, "Whitman and the 'Good Old Cause,'"
American Literature
34.3 [November 1962]: 400–403). Edward Grier notes that this manuscript likely was written prior to 1860 (
Notebooks and Unpublished Prose Manuscripts
[New York: New York University Press, 1984], 4:1329). The titles of both of the proposed poems ("Poem of...") suggest the title format of the 1856 edition. It is unclear whether the second proposed poem, titled
Poem of the People,
ever led to a published work.
Content:
This poem was first titled "To an
artist," then "To an
architect"; the smudged-out words "Lecture[s] / To" appear in light ink
in the upper-left corner. These lines were revised and published under the title
"To a Cantatrice" in the
"Messenger Leaves" cluster
of 1860. After being ungrouped and permanently retitled "To A Certain Cantatrice" in 1867,
it was revised for inclusion in the cluster "Songs of Insurrection" in the 1872 and 1876
Leaves of Grass
. In 1881 it was
finally transferred to the cluster "Inscriptions". On one section of the same leaf of white ruled laid
paper used for "To a
Historian," and with another fragment of the same pencil draft of the
speech or essay "Slavery—the
Slaveholders—/ —The Constitution—the/ true America and Ameri-/ cans, the
laboring persons.—" on verso.
